The Sedona Method: Your Key to Lasting Happiness, Success, Peace and Emotional Well-being. Hale Dwoskin

You may also experience your limiting feelings as a sense of darkness. As you use this process, picture the darkness being washed away, illuminated by the light.

      

      Kinesthetic Sensing

      If you are predominantly kinesthetic, you lead with your physical sensations. Therefore, allow yourself to experience a feeling as fully as you can in your body first, and then relax, open, and feel the feeling leaving as you let go. You may especially enjoy reinforcing the experience of releasing with touch and movement. Try the following:

      • Place both hands face down touching each other on your solar plexus. As you let go a feeling, simply tilt your hands up, creating an imaginary space through which it can pass up and out.

      

      • Make a fist with one hand, holding it to your solar plexus, and then open your hand as you let go of a feeling.

      

      • Combine the physical action of opening your arms with the same inner sense that you have when you’re about to hug someone whom you care about deeply. First, place your hands together in front of you in a prayerful position and simply allow yourself to become aware of whatever you’re feeling in the moment. Then, slowly open your arms wide and, at the same time, let yourself feel welcoming. Keep opening inwardly as best you can while moving your hands slowly outward until they are as far apart as they can go without straining. Afterwards, notice how you feel. If you did this with as little thought as possible, you would probably feel lighter.

      

      • Here is another simple way to reinforce your releasing process physically and help yourself lead more with your heart than your head. Simply place your hand on the spot in your body where you are feeling a feeling—often this place is around the solar plexus or gut. Use this action as a reminder to focus on the feeling itself rather than your thoughts about the feeling.

      

      Auditory Sensing

      If you lead with your auditory sense, the basic releasing questions outlined in Chapter 1 and explored throughout this book may be more than enough to induce you to release. You might also engage in a positive, encouraging internal conversation to reassure yourself that it’s okay to let go as you ask the questions. However, if you use conversation, please keep it to a minimum and avoid debate. It is always better just to say “yes” or “no” to the releasing questions, rather than debating the merits of letting go or anticipating the potential consequences. As you become more experienced in releasing, you may be surprised at what you hear, such as my student who was welcoming a feeling of judgment and heard the words “bad, bad, bad” repeated in her own voice in her mind as though she were a naughty dog. This made her giggle, and so she released.

      People who lead with any one of the three modes of sensing can benefit from using any of the suggestions above at different times. Think back to the brief exercise in the last chapter in which you held on to and then dropped a pen, pencil, or other small object. Why not use that technique if it helps? Just hold on to an object as you ask yourself the releasing questions. When you are ready to release, let the object go as a tangible reinforcement of your internal experience.

      In order to bring your natural ability to release into focus, allow yourself to play a little game as you go about your day. The goal is to practice both holding on to your feelings and letting them go. But keep the pressure low by playing only with your petty annoyances and casual feelings. Notice when you’re holding on and when you’re letting go. Whenever you’re holding on, give yourself permission to continue. Then check in with yourself to determine if you’re willing to give the releasing process a try. If you are, ask the releasing questions: “What am I feeling? Could I allow myself to have this feeling? Could I let it go? Would I let it go? When? Now how am I feeling? Could I let this feeling go? Would I? When?” and so on. This game enhances emotional fluidity.

      When Two or More Are Focused on a Goal

      You may have heard the following story told many different ways. This one is my favorite. A man goes to heaven and meets God at the Pearly Gates. God welcomes him and then asks, “Is there any last wish, my son, before you spend the rest of eternity in heaven?” “Yes,” the man replies. “I would like to see what hell is like so I can more thoroughly appreciate my good fortune.” God says, “Fine,” snaps his fingers, and instantly they enter hell. Before them, as far as the eye can see, is a table piled high with the most wonderful delicacies that anyone’s heart could desire, and on both sides of the table, also as far as the eye can see, are millions of unhappy people starving to death.

      The man asks God, “Why are these people starving?” God replies, “Everyone must eat from the table with 11-foot long chopsticks.” “That’s terribly harsh,” the man says compassionately. God snaps his fingers again, and they’re transported to heaven.

      On entering heaven, the man is surprised to see an almost identical scene—a bountiful table stretching as far as the eye can see—except that everyone is happy and well-fed. He turns and asks God, “What do the people eat with here? They must have different utensils.” “No, my son,” says God, “everyone here eats with 11-foot long chopsticks, too.” The man is confused. “I don’t understand. How is this possible?”

      God replies, “In heaven, we feed each other.”

      The processes explored throughout this book are taken from the Sedona Method audio programs, as well as from the Basic and Advanced Courses we teach at Sedona Training Associates. They are purposefully designed so that you can do them on your own or share them with a friend, relative, or loved one. An awesome power is unleashed when people gather together to focus on freedom. That is why Sedona Training Associates host live seminars to explore the topic, and why you can benefit from sharing this material with others. On earth, as in heaven, when we take care of each other’s needs, no one goes “unfed.”

      If you choose to do the exercises throughout this book with someone else, you can ask each other the questions or lead each other through the explorations. All you need to do is be as present as you can with your partner and read from the book. Grant your partner the authority of his or her self-knowledge by allowing your partner to have his/her own experience.

      When you are facilitating your partner in letting go, do your best to let go, too. This will happen naturally if you are open to it. Allow your partner to go as deeply into the process as he or she chooses. Refrain from leading, judging your partner’s responses, or giving him/her advice. It is not your job to “fix” your partner.

      Refrain from discussing the explorations until you and your partner have both completed them during that sitting and you mutually agree to discuss them. Be sure to validate your partner’s point of view, even if it does not agree with your own. Your partner may say, “I’m sad,” when you believe he/she actually feels angry, for instance. Therefore, help them release on sadness. Honor your partner by accepting what he/she tells you at face value. A common disagreement between partners is whether there has or has not been a full release. You may believe your partner needs to continue releasing on a topic, even though he/she is telling you, “I feel good. I’m done.” Again, as tempting as it may be, it is inappropriate to impose your feelings and interpretations on a partner.

      Please refrain from playing the role of counselor or therapist unless you’re a trained counselor or therapist and your partner has specifically asked you to play this role with him or her. Also, if your partner brings up a medical condition that would ordinarily require treatment from a trained health care professional, suggest that he/she gets whatever support is needed in this area. If you’re not sure whether or not your partner truly needs medical support, you can suggest it anyhow, just to be sure.

      Kenneth: Letting Go of His Attachment to a Story

      Kenneth was a direct witness of the World Trade Center attacks in New York City on September 11, 2001. In spite of daily releasing ever since, he’d been in a continuous